what is the best tablet pc for artwork and 3D animation?

I know almost nothing about computers, others have recommended the HP tm2 and the motion computing LE1600 to me but I'm still not sure and am open to other suggestions. I really wanted the cintiq but need something wireless that I can have in my lap in bed and outside etc.

The Tm2 looks good I love that I can draw or paint with an actual paint brush like tool/pen whatever, but had read somewhere that it didn't have pressure sensitivity which I thought was crucial for artwork since the cintiq has such high pressure sensitivity, but someone else just told me that it does have pressure sensitivity so I am confused!!!! I also kinda wanted something bigger, the sm. cintiq is even 12 in wide but the tm2 is only 12 in diagonal? Is that really big enough? I would really like to have the space of a piece of paper to draw on at least. How much room does the tm2 give you to actually draw? Or if people think a slate like the LE1600 would be better for me then is it difficult to just surf the web on a slate since there's no keyboard right?

I just really want one that is the best for drawing/sketching, painting, 3D animation, and to also use to browse the web and play some flash player games like farmville on facebook if possible, hardcore games would be nice too but not necessary since I have a ps3 for that. the most important thing to me is the artwork and being able to play around with and learn 3D animation too, I want to be able to use maya, and coloring is important to me too. I also want to be able to surf the web and check and send emails etc. below I filled out the questions best I could, thank you soooo much everyone!!!! I really appreciate your help!
Lara

General Questions.

1. What is your budget? .... around $1000.00, the cheaper the better but i was saving for a small cintiq originally until I found out how short all the cords are making it so I wouldn't be able to use it where I need

2. Would you consider purchasing used/refurbished? .......Is that reliable??

3. Do you prefer a Slate, Convertible or Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC)? ..convertible I think, maybe a slate.

4. What size Tablet PC would you prefer? ....... the bigger the better but can't be too hard to carry either so I guess 12" and up. 12 sounds a little small to me but seems to be the size most of them are right now huh? I know the hp tm2 is 12" and I was looking at that, but it's 12" diagonally so what does that make it up and across? does anyone find it too small? I was hoping for a screen of maybe 15" but haven't found anything that size

6. Do you have any preferences to brand loyalty or dislikes? .....don't think so, but I like the fact that the hp tm2 has actual paint brush tools to paint with, do any others have pens that look and feel just like a paintbrush?

7. How many hours battery life do you require? .......a decent amount, would like to use outside and inside

8. What will be the primary usage scenario of this tablet? ....... Drawing, sketching, painting, coloring, 3D animation, and facebook games if possible, /Entertainment/ Email/Web Surfing/Word Processing/Notetaking etc)

9. Do you have an OS preference?..????

10. What software and tasks do you intend to run? ........ artrage and others for sketching/drawing, corel painter, maya, Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, Microsoft Office or other Word Processing Suite//Autocad etc)..do any of them come with any programs already like the cintiq does? Do they come with windows anything?

10. Do you intend on playing Games? If so please list........ facebook games like farmville that use adobe flash if possible, I'd also like to use more hardcore games but I usually play on my PS3 so it's not a big deal, but the flash player games don't work on my ps3 so I would like to play those

Screen Specifics

1. What resolution do you prefer? .......I want whatever is the most comperable to the cintiq, I really know nothing about this stuff, just that I want everything to look as good as poss. I would like a lot of room to draw, want to be able to read the text lol but don't need it too big either.

* XGA - 1024x768 ~ large and easy to read text and graphic icons but you fit less on the screen.
* SXGA - 1400x1050 ~ Small text and graphic icons which require good vision but the gain is a much larger screen. (no longer available new, must look for used or refurbished machines)
* WXGA - 1280x768 ~ has a wider usable area than XGA, ideal for viewing Spreadsheets and other programs that require desktop space. The mainly used resolution for new tablet PCs since 2008.

2. Do you require the screen to be readable in sunlight?... yes would like to use it outside, but will probably be inside mostly.

See the above linked FAQ for guidance

3. Do you prefer your display to be glossy or matte?... sorry not sure?

4. Do you require Touch? (without pressure sensitivity) (Which one: resistive or capacitive) ..... with pressure sensitivity b/c it makes artwork more like drawing on paper right? I know the cintiq has the most pressure sensitivity so I'm guessing it's important... I know, I really don't know about this stuff sorry. but yes I would like to be able to draw thin and thick lines.

See the above linked FAQ for guidance

5. Do you require a Pen? (with pressure sensitivity) (Which one: Wacom or N-Trig) ......yes I believe so and I definitely think wacom since I want whatever is closest to the cintiq but wireless

See the above linked FAQ for guidance

Component Specifics

1. What size Hard Drive and Memory do you require? .....Not sure

2. Do you require an Optical (CD/DVD) Drive to be built in?...... don't know

3. Do you require ability to add a second Battery or Hard Drive (Modular Bay technology)?.......no idea

Misc
1. Other non specific items ~ please add other items you require not covered above? .....can't think of anything, except I'm a beginner obviously so the easier to learn the better I guess

2. Additional requests ~ anything other you wish to take into consideration?........nope you covered it thanx!

OK! So let start with the basics.
In terms of usability and software a Tablet PC is like EVERY normal laptop out there. It just has the extra advantage of having a digitizer and/or touch panel in the screen.
There really aren't any Tablet PCs geared specifically toward artists so none of them are going to come packaged with art software (except maybe the ModBook which is a whole different very expensive beast). They will come with Windows like any other laptop (that's your OS/Operating System by the way).
The digitizer you're going to want is a Wacom. The Wacom Penabled digitizer that is available in Tablet PCs has 256 levels of pressure and are compatible with standard, felt, stroke and flex nibs. They do NOT detect tilt or rotation like the Cintiq and require slightly more force to start drawing lines than the Cintiq and Intuos4.

What is this paint brush-like tool you've seen with the HP? Do yo have any links of references to it?

For screen size almost everything on the market is a 12.1" widescreen, the Fujitsu T5010 and newer T900 have a 13.3" widescreen.
Just about any Tablet PC can surf the web and play flash games but almost no current Tablet PCs have a dedicated GPU and so are generally not suited to doing/playing 3D games. Your best (and pretty much only) bet for any kind of 3D is the HP TM2t with Core i5-430UM CPU and 512MB ATI 5450 GPU.

My wife is an illustrator and she uses a refurbished Fujitsu T5010 for pretty much all her coloring. She still does most of her initial line work in graphite and scans it in for use on the T5010.
You can see her work here: LunaKenei.deviantART.com

Price wise a refurbished Fujitsu T5010 would probably run $800-$1000 on eBay or an HP TM2t will run a bit over $1000.

The onboard Intel graphics chips are crap for 3D modeling, especially since most industry software is optimized for OpenGL. I use Rhino and the only reason it works well at all is that the publisher rewrote it so be able to work around DirectX. Don't believe it for a second if the specs for your Intel graphic chip says it's OpenGL 1.4 compatible. The actual drivers are as flaky as their performance. Speaking of which, for actual performance on complex models, my ancient Athlon desktop with a Radeon video card can rotate and redraw full screen models faster than my (new to me) Toshiba M400, even though there is an eternity of 3 years difference in technology.

ensen.

Those who claim to be making history are often the same ones repeating it.

Krelian, Wow thank you so much! All these links should really help thank you so much!..The paint brush thing I was talking about was something I saw them using on project runway last season, the tm2 is what they are using on that show I believe, I know it's a HP, but they were painting right on the screen with what looked exactly like a real paint brush, I thought it was a special tool for the hp tablet pc, but maybe it was just a paint brush is that possible, the strokes looked just like as if they were painting on a canvas. I could have sworn they said it was a tool/stylus (?) for the hp, but maybe just a paint brush, but still they used it right on the screen. It was awesome!
you said:
"They do NOT detect tilt or rotation like the Cintiq and require slightly more force to start drawing lines than the Cintiq and Intuos4."
So none of the tablet pc's or slates do besides the cintiq or Intuous4? I really wish they would make the cintiq more portable! Even if they would just make the cords longer so I wasn't stuck right at my computer, it might have worked, although I'd still love to use it outside. I know you can hook it into a laptop but, I can't afford to buy both and I just can't carry all that I've heard the cords are a serious pain. Would there be a way to make them longer though? that scares me that only the cintiq detects tilt or rotation, doesn't that make it hard to draw what you want on the other units? Or it's not as important as it sounds? So you don't think any of the tablet pc's or slates would run maya for 3D animation? I don't care about playing 3D games, but I would really love to create 3D animations on whatever tablet pc or slate I get. You think maybe the hp tm2 would run maya though? It sounds like the other tablet pc's the older ones are better for drawing though huh, so there still doesn't seem to be any all in one unit like the cintiq but wireless, huh?, that really sucks!

ok I'm gonna look through the links you posted, thank you sooo much again! huge help! I look forward to checking out your wife's work too thanks You seem very proud, that's awesome

purplepeopleadesign, thank you so much I haven't actually ever done any 3D animation yet, but really wanted to start, b/c most of what I draw is cartoon/animation style. So your saying your desk top works best for 3Danimation? Let me ask you, since I've never actually tried any program for 3d animation yet, is it more modeling then free hand drawing? Not sure I'm saying that right but hopefully you know what I mean. Like can you easily do it all with a regular mouse even if your not really good at drawing free hand with a mouse? Is it more about telling the lines where to go with the keyboard and mouse then drawing every line free hand? I really have no clue what I'm talking about sorry. But I've looked at different sites for 3D animation programs, and it sometimes looks more like graphs in a way. It's so hard trying to explain myself when I don't know the proper terms..ugh.. hopefully you understand, thank you!

purplepeopleadesign, thank you so much I haven't actually ever done any 3D animation yet, but really wanted to start, b/c most of what I draw is cartoon/animation style. So your saying your desk top works best for 3Danimation? Let me ask you, since I've never actually tried any program for 3d animation yet, is it more modeling then free hand drawing? Not sure I'm saying that right but hopefully you know what I mean. Like can you easily do it all with a regular mouse even if your not really good at drawing free hand with a mouse? Is it more about telling the lines where to go with the keyboard and mouse then drawing every line free hand? I really have no clue what I'm talking about sorry. But I've looked at different sites for 3D animation programs, and it sometimes looks more like graphs in a way. It's so hard trying to explain myself when I don't know the proper terms..ugh.. hopefully you understand, thank you!

Click to expand...

Just about all 3D is CAD. There are generally two phases to 3D... modeling and rendering (animation can probably be classified as an extension of rendering with the addition of controls for timing, positioning or maybe even physics like gravity or fluid dynamics). In design and engineering, rendering is done for presentation, typically for a client. Animation just requires rendering to be done for each frame in the clip.

Modeling requires a very strong graphics card, because the whole image must be refreshed at very high rates. Imagine running your typical shooter video game at the maximum resolution, maximum colour and here's the kicker... expecting all motion to be silky smooth at the monitor frame rate. This is why so many 3D capable workstations have "professional" graphics cards that cost more than the oversize monitor. This is part of the reason I use Rhino.... it doesn't require anything better than DirectX and can easily take advantage of any gamer-level card.

Modeling is not like sketching. Even if you are just pulling meshes freehand, it's still more like moving Bezier control points. As such, the best tool for me is actually my mouse, since it has an extra button and can be easily used in conjunction with the CTRL, SHIFT and ALT keys. Typically, the wheel is used to zoom and the modifier keys are used to change the point of view. A good modeler can do this so fast that it looks like the model is animating in real time. I'm not that fast, but this would be impossible to do with a stylus. Some people are so skilled they can also use a puck... a little device that puts several more commands in their other hand.

Rendering requires big CPU. Where I worked before, I had a dual Opteron that could render this one test scene in 15 seconds that my single Athlon required 2 minutes to finish. I haven't tried that on my Core Duo, but I'll wager it's only going to be around 30 seconds based on what I recall from a Rhino forum thread where people were posting their render times for bragging rights. I don't know how the new i7 compares but I can imagine it might reduce that render test to 5 seconds. That's 3 times as fast, but you can see that with a complex animation like the Pixar lamp, it's going to take minutes or hours per frame. Per frame! And that's why the big FX and VG houses all have server farms or parallel supercomputers. There are some rendering engines that can make use of special video or physics cards to speed up the rendering time, but now you're getting into really crazy money.

ensen.

Those who claim to be making history are often the same ones repeating it.

purplepeopledesign, thank you for explaining all that, that helps, so it sounds like I'm better off trying out the 3D animation on my desktop then and just use the tablet pc for drawing and painting. I wasn't sure I could do animation on my desk top b/c i can't draw with my mouse, so it really helps that you explained all that thank you. Do you possibly know any free programs for 3D animation that I could download just to try it, see if I really like it or not before I buy an expensive program? thank you so much I'm excited it sounds fun
Lara

I'm not the best person to advise on software since I've been happy with Rhino from first release.

Still, both Sketchup and Blender are free. I haven't ever bothered with either because of Rhino but from what I've seen Blender looks interesting though everywhere there is a comparison done with other 3D software it supposedly trips on it's own workflow. IMO, Sketchup shows more promise as a modeler since it is beginning to make inroads into architecture, design and even engineering.

If you want to do photorealistic, you generally have to get a third-party app or plug-in to work with your modeling software. In my case I am using the cheap and cheerful Flamingo from the same mfg as Rhino. You can pay more for these than for the modeler. For instance, Hypershot starts at $1000 but is used for many of the photo-quality concept cars that keep making the blog circles everywhere.

Note that animation can be just camera movement, object motion or deformation, skeletal animation or a combination of all three. What you want to accomplish will determine what apps you need and how much for the entry fee.

If you are a student, you may be able to get a free or cheap copy of any of the big apps. The ones I see a lot of seem to be Maya and 3DS for movies and gaming, Solidworks for engineering, Inventor and Rhino for design, and Revit for architecture. Many of these are interchangeable and crossover a lot. Autodesk makes many of apps for the various markets and Solidworks has one of the best workflows if you do a lot of prototypes. Whichever you choose, they all have a lot of import/export file formats so transferring files is fairly easy.

ensen.

Those who claim to be making history are often the same ones repeating it.

Krelian,
Wow I checked out your wife's artwork and it's so gorgeous!!!!!! She's really great!!!! Her stuff is pretty similar to what I want to do on my tablet pc. Does she do all her work, drawing and coloring on one tablet pc or slate, or does she work on different things? She's much better then me but I'd really like to get there, and really want to find one wireless tablet pc or slate that I can do all of that on and also browse the web too. ...I'm realizing that the 3D animation is better to do on my desktop unfortunately.
thank you,
Lara

purplepeopledesign,
thank you, yeah I'm not a student, unfortunately I'm home bound right now and am just a really artistic person who loves picking up anything and everything artistic, and learning just by doing, so I just wanted to try it, that's why most of this is like a foreign language to me, but I'm trying. thank you again!
Lara